Dolby Digital with HD Homerun

[Beefcake550]

Hi all, I've recently switched over from VMC (yeah). I've got an HD-PVR(DirecTV) and a HDHR(HD cable locals). I am running a system with a quad core 9300 on a Asus P5E-VM (G35 chipset). I can't seem to get Dolby Digital to bitstream to the receiver (Onkyo 605) using HDMI. It seems like using AC3filter as the audio decoder, it decodes the audio to be 5.1 PCM, which isn't bad. I'd prefer that it bitstream, but how can I do this? How can I modify the AC3 filter settings so it just passes through the DD bitstream?

I haven't explicitly installed AC3 filter, so I guess SageTV has it built in? Perhaps I need to install AC3filter and then I can modify some setting somewhere?

Thanks.

-Brian

[jgourd]

I had the same issue with my system. It turned out that the HD audio chip on the video card had a really poor driver for XP and no amount of AC-3 filter settings and SPDIF settings in the audio driver would fix the problem. The solution, as much as it pains me to say this, was to blow away the machine and load Vista. Yes, I said Vista FIXED a problem rather than creating one.

I currently run SageTV and BeyondTV link on the machine and both pass AC-3 audio just fine to the HDMI outputs.

[Beefcake550]

Well, that syucks more than you know....I am already running Vista.

Could you perhaps dive into your settings. My main question is where do you adjust the ac3filter settings for SageTV if you haven't downloaded/installed AC3 myself? Is the answer to that question to go and install AC3filter?

Thanks for your reply.

-Brian

[jgourd]

I used the AC-3 filter config app in the SageTV folder in Program Files to enable the SPDIF output. I also have the AC-3 and DTS SPDIF audio options checked in the Vista sound control panel.

This article might help. http://www.gnegg.ch/2007/01/vista-ac3-spdif/

[Beefcake550]

Thanks jgourd,

I didn't know about the ac3filter config app. I am familiar with ac3filter back whenI was running XP, so I should be alright adjusting the properties to allow ac3/dts passthrough.

[petereader]

You may also want to check out this post:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23853

It may not apply to your specific configuration, but it's a great reference for configuring the ac3 filter with Sage. Also keep in mind that the info is a little dated.